Locally Made Monday - Birkmeier and Sons Monument

Locally Made Monday - Birkmeier and Sons Monument

It's Monday, and tonight we're taking a look at a local business who is helping people around the region remember their loved ones.
Go into any cemetery in our region and you're all but certain to find a headstone or memorial made by Birkmeier and Sons Monument in Fort Wayne.
They've been doing it for over a hundred and thirty years.

It's Monday, and tonight we're taking a look at a local business who is helping people around the region remember their loved ones.

Go into any cemetery in our region and you're all but certain to find a headstone or memorial made by Birkmeier and Sons Monument in Fort Wayne.

They've been doing it for over a hundred and thirty years.

It’s this week’s Locally Made Monday.

"Birkmeier's has been in business since they've been in Fort Wayne since 1927, and they actually started in the 1880s,” says manager Lisa Scheurich.

That's a long time to be in business.

And in all those years employees at Birkmeier and Sons Monument has made their product in house, and by hand.

"How it is produces is still pretty much done the way it was back in the old days- sandblasting a lot of elbow grease and labor is put into it,” Scheurich says.

Scheurich says they make headstones, tombstones and memorials, along with garden art, laser etchings and other creative products.

All from granite and bronze that comes from across the U.S., and all the work is done right here- which she says is unique.

"We are the only monument company in this area that still does their own lettering and carving. Most others will order them in complete, so they never see or touch your stone,” Scheurich says.

The company's four full-time employees, along with seasonal staff, will install it in a regional cemetery as well.

Scheurich says it's all a part of the story for your memory.

"We try to make the monument actually tell a story about a life, so we want to know who we're memorializing. That lets us get the story told without making a cookie cutter design, and making it more unique and personal to the family and the life that we're remembering,” Scheurich says.

And she says they want to make those memories live on.

If you want to find out more about Birkmeier and Sons Monument, check them out at-